Digital video recording and playback systems, including digital video recorders (DVRs), continue to become more and more ubiquitous as prices decline, technological features advance, and digital distribution of content proliferates. Using DVRs or other recording and playback systems, users may record broadcast programs for later viewing. To record a program, a user may typically interact with the DVR to instruct it to record the program, such as by interaction with a programming guide with a list of available programs. In some situations, users may also select a channel and start and ending times for the recording. The DVR may then record the program from its scheduled start time until its scheduled end time while also storing the recorded program. At a later time, the user may then view the recorded and stored program at their leisure.
One problem with recording broadcast programming is that broadcasts often extend over their scheduled times, making it possible for a viewer to miss some of the broadcast content when viewing the recorded program. A program may begin early, for example, if the program preceding it ends earlier than anticipated, clock differentials between the DVR and content provider, scheduling changes, or other reasons. Similarly, a user may miss content after the scheduled end time because of scheduling changes, clock differentials, or more commonly programs that run long because of interruptions (e.g., preemption by presidential address, weather alert, or breaking news) or unanticipated delays (e.g., a football game going to overtime). If a user has requested their DVR to record from a start time to an end time, the user may thus miss potentially valuable and interesting content, such as the end of a game or drama or the introduction to a program.
One solution to this problem is for the user to manually go into the planned recorded program and instruct the DVR to record additional time over the scheduled program. This solution, however, requires manual modification and thus is labor-intensive as the user would need to perform the modification for each program for which they desire to record additional time. As a user may not know which program is likely to start early or overrun, much of the effort in modifying start or end times will be wasted. Moreover, even if the user knew precisely which programs were likely to need additional recording time (such as if the user wanted to record extra time on sporting events in case of overtimes), such a solution would require manual intervention by the user for each program and would thus be inefficient. There is, therefore, a need for an efficient and effective system to record and manage extended program content for recorded programs on a DVR or other digital recorder.